Tokyo / Harajuku & Meiji Shrine / Museum

Ota Memorial Museum of Art

太田記念美術館 おおたきねんびじゅつかん

Ukiyo-e only — Hokusai, Hiroshige, Utamaro — in a small house of tatami and stone, one street from Takeshita.

Worth itArt · Rainy day · Quiet · History

Twelve thousand woodblock prints collected by the insurance magnate Ota Seizo, shown a hundred at a time in monthly exhibitions in a quiet building where you remove your shoes for the tatami room. Because the prints fade, each is shown briefly and the themes change — Hokusai's waves one month, ghosts the next, cats, kabuki actors, Edo restaurants. It is the best place in Tokyo to understand that ukiyo-e were the magazines and posters of their day, and to see them close enough to count the lines. The shop sells good reproductions and the museum's own catalogues.

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A hand-drawn sketch for orientation — each place links to an exact map.
Tip
An hour is enough; buy the current show's catalogue rather than a general book.
Best time
Weekday afternoon.
Allow
60 min
Station
Meiji-jingumae (Chiyoda / Fukutoshin lines), exit 5, 1 minute
Official site — hours, prices, closures
www.ukiyoe-ota-muse.jp · Map

Appears in

In this area: Harajuku & Meiji Shrine

Shrine Essential

Meiji Jingu明治神宮

A century-old forest of a hundred thousand trees, a cypress shrine at its centre, and silence a hundred paces from Harajuku.

90 min · Harajuku (JR) or Meiji-jingumae (Chiyoda / Fukutoshin lines), at the gate
Park Worth it

Yoyogi Park代々木公園

Tokyo's Sunday lawn — rockabilly dancers, drum circles, picnics under the ginkgo, and the Olympic gymnasium by Tange.

90 min · Harajuku (JR) or Yoyogi-koen (Chiyoda line), 3 minutes
Street Essential

Takeshita Street and Cat Street竹下通りとキャットストリート

The loudest lane in Japan and, one block behind it, the quiet one where the fashion actually happens.

90 min · Harajuku (JR, Takeshita exit) to Shibuya, walking south

All places — Harajuku & Meiji Shrine →